Advances in Clinical Psychoanalysis

Inbunden bok. International Universities Press, Inc. 1981. 410 sidor.

Mycket gott skick. Skyddsomslag i gott skick. Språk: Engelska. "Profusely illustrated with previously unpublished case materials, this work focuses on three interrelated issues of the utmost importance for the analytic practice: How is analyzability defined and what are its limits? What are appropriate modifications of technique if the range of application of psychoanalysis is broadened? And how does one view the problems of psychopathology from Gedo's current theoretical position? In earlier works, Gedo has conceived psychic functioning in terms of a developmental hierarchy of personal aims (comprising both objective psychobiological needs and subjective wishes). This perspective suggests a needed expansion of analytic theory to account for the full complexity of human behavior in both health and maladaptation. Now, in 'Advances in Clinical Psychoanalysis', Gedo spells out the implications of such a developmental model for analytic work, revealing the consequences of poorly resolved issues at every step of childhood. Archaic (so-called preoedipal) problems are depicted as difficulties in their own right, not simply as regressive evasions of later conflicts; these aspects of the personality require therapeutic modalities that go 'beyond interpretation'. In other words, in addition to employing our traditional mode of resolving oedipal conflict through interpretation, we must extend analytic technique by using other measures when the pathology we encounter stems from more primitive layers of personality. Gedo also compares his theoretical and clinical proposals with those of the most influential schools of thought on the current American psychoanalytic scene - traditional ego psychology, Kohut's self psychology, and object relations theory (such as that of Kernberg). The inadequacies of these competing hypotheses are clearly demonstrated through the clinical experiences described in this volume. Although Gedo's own concepts are not put forward as the definitive solution for the current impasse in psychoanalytic theorizing, one reader has shrewdly dubbed this work as that of 'a radical traditionalist or a conservative revolutionary, depending on one's perspective'".